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The Morning Porch

Daily short takes from an Appalachian hollow

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blue-gray gnatcatcher

May 7, 2014 by Dave Bonta

Two catbirds tangle in the air above the stream. A hummingbird dive-bombs a gnatcatcher. The first great-crested flycatcher holds forth.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags blue-gray gnatcatcher, catbird, great-crested flycatcher, ruby-throated hummingbird, stream 1 Comment
May 3, 2014 by Dave Bonta

Two gnatcatchers at work. The way every flight turns into a series of mid-air divagations, I wonder if they ever know where they’ll end up.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags blue-gray gnatcatcher 1 Comment
August 24, 2012 by Dave Bonta

A murky sunrise. Gnatcatchers high in the tulip tree dart and hover, tiny silhouettes against a cross-hatch of stratus clouds.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags blue-gray gnatcatcher, sunrise, tulip tree
August 22, 2010 by Dave Bonta

A blue-gray gnatcatcher drops into the dead cherry and begins to forage, singing its small hoarse note. Beads of rain wobble but don’t fall.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags blue-gray gnatcatcher, cherry tree
May 17, 2010 by Dave Bonta

A blue-gray gnatcatcher hoovering insects from the cherry leaves hovers almost like a hummingbird, I think, until the real thing zooms by.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags blue-gray gnatcatcher, ruby-throated hummingbird
August 28, 2009 by Dave Bonta

Another overcast morning, with wind and the sound of trucks out of the east. Two thrushes and a gnatcatcher move silently through the lilac.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags blue-gray gnatcatcher, lilac, trucks, wood thrush
April 25, 2009 by Dave Bonta

Kitchen: wolf spider. Bathroom: silverfish. Dining room: millipede. And right above me on the porch, a gnatcatcher lands and sings.

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Categories Plummer's Hollow Tags blue-gray gnatcatcher, millipede, silverfish, spiders
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On This Day

  • September 26, 2025
    Cloudy at sunrise, the sky takes its time clearing off. A walnut splats down on the driveway, trailed by a fluttery entourage of yellow leaves.
  • September 26, 2024
    Overcast and damp. Anxious notes from a nuthatch following the crash of a rotten limb up in the woods where a screech owl had been trilling.
  • September 26, 2023
    Rain: on the roofs drumming, in the meadow a whisper and in the forest a quiet roar. It lasts for hours. The cold creeps under my coat.
  • September 26, 2022
    In the half-dark of dawn, something runs across the porch toward my feet—I scream and jump. The rabbit too appears to be discombobulated.
  • September 26, 2021
    Cloudless blue like October come early. A crow. A raven’s croak. The field full of yellow goldenrod heads bowing toward the sun.

See all...

Related book

Cover of Ice Mountain with a linocut of a big ridgetop tree.

What I do after I sit on the porch. One winter and spring's daily walks distilled into short poems with linocut illustrations by Beth Adams.

Header image: detail from Paper Garden by Clive Hicks-Jenkins (used by permission)

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